Review - Remember Me

71 years from now, in France, a corporation discovers how to control and alter memories. It's up to one woman to stop them from abusing this power and to help all of their victims to remember.

Players take control of Nilin, a woman whose streaky hair reminded me of Joanna Dark in Perfect Dark Zero, bringing back suppressed memories of disappointment (Nilin, please remix me). Nilin lives in Neo-Paris in 2084 and she's a Memory Hunter who has been detained by Memorize in La Bastille and has had the majority of her memories wiped. We learn, through dialogue with a mysterious man communicating with us remotely, that Memorize has commercialised memories. A brain implant enables people to download memories, which has given Memorize massive power and created junkie-like husks who wander around Slum 404 looking for a memory fix. Anyone who opposes Memorize is detained and has their memory wiped so that they are no longer a threat. It is revealed that the man talking to us is Edge, leader of the Errorists, who helps us escape La Bastille before the rest of our memories are wiped, so that we may help him take down Memorize.

I thought that Remember Me was designed for consoles from the beginning because the title screen said “Press Start/Enter”. As a relatively new PC gamer I've been forcing myself to use the mouse and keyboard, to improve my skills, so I continued anyway. I managed about half an hour before I had to plug my Xbox 360 controller in to keep playing. The mouse didn't always seem to influence the movement, which led to me running into walls every now and then, and the fighting felt overly difficult and clunky. However, once I was using the gamepad it felt like I was in control.

Once you're done running and jumping it's time to engage some enemies with your fists and your feet. Punch and kick are the two attacks available, along with dodge, which makes Nilin roll to the side or do a flip over someone to avoid damage. There are four different combos, of increasing length, that are unlocked as you progress. You can customise these combos to either add damage, partially heal yourself, or decrease the cooldown time of your special abilities. The fact that you can do this adds versatility and editing combos on the fly is very handy. Your five special abilities, which also need to be unlocked, break up the monotony of repeatedly punching, kicking and dodging people and enable you to quickly eliminate stronger enemies.

A typical battle involves a mindless mob with a couple of sturdier foes thrown into the mix. Taking on the horde can be frustrating because of all the dodging required, but some of the stronger enemies are difficult to attack unless there are few distractions. Ideally you want to take out the strongest opponents first, with special abilities, and then take on the horde with combos, but this is not always possible. Boss battles will require some more thinking than normal, but once you've learnt the enemy's pattern, they are fairly simple to take out. There are a few quicktime events in the game, usually at the end of a boss battle, but they are sparse enough to not be a problem and I only failed one once.

Another aspect that we are introduced to early on is memory remixing. Nilin is attacked by a bounty hunter (Olga) and has to convert her to the Errorists' cause by altering her perception of the past. We're taken to a hospital earlier that day, where Olga is overlooking her partner's bed. He's having some sort of memory treatment. Players are tasked with finding glitches in the memory, thus changing events and resulting in the patient's death. A glitch looks just like, well, a glitch (think digital interference on a television). They don't jump out of the screen at you, but they're not too hard to miss either. Once you have located a glitch, you activate it and play the memory again to see if you have killed the patient or if there are more glitches to be found. There are a few different chances for you to remix memories throughout the game, altering people's minds and changing their points of view. It's a nice addition to the game, if somewhat repetitive, and is more interesting than simply watching a cutscene.

The world that has been created in Remember Me looks something like a cross between those of Deus Ex: Human Revolution and I, Robot. Although I feel that the game has not been optimised for PC and doesn't take advantage of the available power, it still looks really good. There is adequate parity between the cutscenes and the open world and everything is very crisp and well-defined. It's the small, unnecessary things that set this game apart, such as all of the shop signs that appear as digital overlays that pop up when you're in close proximity, informing you that there is a sale on or that they are closed for the weekend. The environment is strange enough to feel like you're really in the future, but familiar enough that you don't feel too removed from it.

There aren't too many characters to keep track of in Remember Me and the voice-acting was good enough for me to retain my immersion for the most part. What bothered me was that this is a game set in France, with French characters, but there wasn't a single French voice. Assassin's Creed 2 had plenty of Italian and I think a similar approach here would have better suited the world. Instead we have a mix of British and American accents, which seems out of place.

Once you've unlocked all of the special abilities and combos that make the combat enjoyable you're already past the mid-point of the game. Also, the plot is really far-fetched and hard to follow. However, the environment looks great and there was a good mix of gameplay elements. If you can get it for a reduced price and you have a gamepad then I would certainly recommend this game for PC. Alternatively, you could get it for console, but don't expect to want to play through it more than once.